News: Robbie Savage on the Manchester derby, Burnley and Leeds
In his regular
BBC Sport column, football pundit Robbie Savage looks at how Sunday's
Manchester derby is the start of a big week for Manchester City manager
Manuel Pellegrini, why Burnley do not come close to his old Derby side
as being the worst team in Premier League history and what happens next
for Leeds after their latest managerial change.
It has already been
a bad week for Manchester City and their manager Manuel Pellegrini,
and things could easily get even worse on derby day.
The people saying they are a club on the brink of a
crisis are not far wrong - this is a pivotal moment for City's season
and, possibly, Pellegrini's future too.
I am expecting Chelsea to beat QPR on Saturday and, if they do, City will go into Sunday's derby with Manchester United nine points behind Jose Mourinho's side.
After two defeats and a draw in their last three games, the defending Premier League champions will be under massive pressure to find some form, beat their neighbours and stay in touch at the top.
Pellegrini's side have not won any of their three Champions League games this season
In that time, the spotlight has usually been on the manager on the other side of Manchester - firstly David Moyes, and now Louis van Gaal.
Would winning the FA Cup be enough?
Pellegrini, who is very much the quiet man anyhow, has rarely made the headlines other than by winning the Premier League title in his first season in charge.
Continue reading the main story
“It is a mystery why City have failed to find the electric attacking form from last season”
That was a superb achievement,
and he did it playing some brilliant attacking football, but now he is
finding out how hard it is to deliver the dominance that is the
long-term goal for City's owners.
For City to become as big as they want to be, which is a
worldwide force in the same bracket as Manchester United and Real
Madrid, they have got to win the Champions League.
That is almost certainly not going to happen this season - they might not even get out of their group.
City have another must-win game against CSKA Moscow on Wednesday but even then they face a fight to reach the knockout stage.
Another Premier League title this campaign already looks a huge ask and, for me, defeat by United would all but finish their hopes - I do not see Chelsea losing three times all season and that nine-point gap would be too big to make up.
Wednesday's defeat by Newcastle means their defence of the Capital One Cup is already over too so, by Bonfire Night, they could be realistically down to being in the hunt for one trophy - the FA Cup.
The worry for Pellegrini is whether winning that would be enough to keep him in his job.
Mancini left City in 2013, a year after taking them to the Premier League title
Mancini's departure appeared to have been decided before the 2013 final, which City lost to Wigan. If that is true, then even winning the FA Cup would not have saved him.
What is wrong with City?
City's struggles this season already remind me of what happened under Mancini after he won the Premier League in 2012.They failed to improve their squad, flopped in Europe and ended up finishing a distant second in the title race.
This time around, their early-season form has not been disastrous, just not very good.
Their defensive problems are obvious and, on the face of it, most worrying.
But it is a mystery why they have failed to find the electric attacking form from last campaign that saw them become the quickest team to score 100 goals in a season in the Premier League era.
Toure scored 20 Premier League goals last season, but has managed just one so far this campaign
Ignoring domestic cup games against non-Premier League teams, they scored 37 goals in their final 14 games of last season.
In the same period at the start of this one, and again ignoring games against lower division opposition, they have found the net only 22 times.
I don't know what has gone wrong and why they are missing their spark, but the worrying thing is that Pellegrini does not seem to know either.
It is not beyond him to turn things round, however.
This time 12 months ago, City were smashing teams all over the place at home but shipping goals badly on the road and had lost four away games in the league by mid-November.
Pellegrini adapted his tactics, added some defensive solidity to their attacking flair and did not lose again away until the middle of April.
He needs to do something similar again now, starting on Sunday.
Rock-bottom Burnley will not be worst ever
Things look pretty grim for Burnley right now - they are bottom of the table without a win from their first nine games, and look unlikely to break their duck when they play Arsenal on Saturday.Even so, I do not see the Clarets rivalling my old Derby side as the worst team in Premier League history, which we were when we sank like a stone in 2007-08.
Savage did not win a game in his first season with Derby after joining at the start of January 2008
The Rams had picked up that win before I joined them from Blackburn in January of that season, so I didn't even win one game with them.
“I knew going into every game that we would get beaten, and most of the time that is what happened”
I can laugh about it now but it was a horrible time.
Derby were eight points adrift at the bottom of the
table when I moved to Pride Park so I knew there was a good chance they
would go down.
But they had just made a few signings to try to stay up - players like Laurent Robert, Hossam Ghaly and Danny Mills - and, as far as I was concerned, they were still fighting. The worst case scenario was going down, and then helping them get straight back up.
Any positive thoughts had disappeared within a week of me going there, though, just from what was happening in training.
The players had no confidence and we ended up going into games every week looking at the opposition and thinking 'how are we going to get anything here?'
I learned a big lesson about how big a part self-belief plays in sport.
I knew going into every game that we would get beaten, and most of the time that is what happened.
I would still do my best but for the first time in my career I did not think that would be enough to make a difference.
Derby's Premier League record 2007-08 |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P38 | W1 | D8 | L29 | F20 | A89 | PTS 11 |
Yes, they are the only team without a victory in the top four divisions in England but they are not playing like a beaten team.
Burnley's Premier League record 2014-15 |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P9 | W0 | D4 | L5 | F5 | A16 | PTS 4 |
Goals are the key to Burnley revival
On the pitch, Derby's big problem was goals. There just were not enough of them in that Rams team, and we only scored 20 in 38 league games.Kenny Miller was our top league scorer with four. Then came Emanuel Villa, a £2m Argentine who was new to the Premier League and scored three times after signing in January.
Our other strikers, Steve Howard and Robert Earnshaw, scored one apiece.
I wasn't going to score any from midfield and neither was David Jones who, ironically, is now playing for Burnley. He is probably worried that he is going through a repeat of that 2007-08 season all over again.
Their statistics do not look good, with Burnley near the bottom of the rankings in most attacking categories, particularly shots on target and their ratio of goals to shots.
Burnley in the Premier League 2014-15 (and rank) |
|
|---|---|
|
Data: Opta |
|
|
Goals |
5 (19th) |
|
Average shots per game |
8.78 (12th) |
|
% Shots on target |
34% (19th) |
|
% Shots to goals |
6% (20th) |
|
% Pass completion |
73% (19th) |
|
% Possession |
43% (17th) |
Even if they do find the form that won the Clarets promotion, the bottom line is that it is a huge step-up from the Championship and Premier League, as Burnley are finding out.
But they will not go down without a fight and, sadly for Derby, I think that means their records are safe.
Leeds need stability, Redfearn needs time
I have not forgotten that Leeds fans pelted me with hot-dogs when I was working as an on-pitch TV pundit at Emirates Stadium before an FA Cup tie against Arsenal in January 2012.It was the first time I had been attacked with fast food.
Despite that, I still feel sorry for them with the managerial circus that is going on at Elland Road right now.
Redfearn earned 10 points in four games as Leeds caretaker boss earlier this season
I had a great call from a young Leeds fan on 606 on BBC Radio 5 live on Saturday, who said that he still thinks they can finish in the top six in the Championship with Redfearn in charge.
But, realistically, survival has to be the target for Leeds. To achieve that, stability has to be the main aim for Redfearn and Cellino.
I don't think Leeds will go down but it is sad to see such a massive club with a great history and a fantastic fanbase face such an uncertain future.
The only way that is going to change is if Cellino gives Redfearn time.
Robbie Savage was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan
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